Enlisting Useful Idiots: The Ties Between Online Harassment and Disinformation

Abstract

Online harassment can be better understood as a policy vulnerability for social media platforms. It is often a canary in the coal mine for other serious harms like disinformation and influence operations. This article provides examples from the Global South to show the worldwide scale of this problem, how online harassment is often intertwined with disinformation, and how platforms and other players can use this awareness to mitigate harms from both online harassment and the other threats it is linked to.